You are what you eat, and who wants to be a lettuce?

So another thing that happened while we were recently travelling - we were some place, I don't remember exactly where, and of course we were getting ready to eat or drink something, probably both, and foie gras was on the menu, and Tom LOVES foie and was talking about getting it.

And I was giving him shit because,  if you are unaware of what they do to ducks/geese to get their livers  in to the desired form for mass consumption... The technique used is gavage and is the procedure by which the birds are deliberately fattened through force-feeding  To say it is beyond inhumane is well being quite generous.  I was going to insert a photo, but they upset me so much I decided against it.  My point here is not to try to convert anyone, just to offer up my personal experience.

Anyway, I was going on about how inhumane it is and Tom said something to the effect that I was being hypocritical - because I eat animal.

And he is/was right, I consume animal, and have become desensitized to it because it is served up in odd bits and pieces, and on flats of styrofoam, and the humanity of the treatment of the animals is far far removed.
Add to that how it sickens me, and I do means physically sickens me when I see and hear of cases of mistreatment and abuse of animals.  In fact it's one of the reasons I can no longer work at the dog shelter here.  I do other things to help, but I can't bear to see the animals and the condition they are in, especially when they first arrive.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 

So anyway, it got me thinking - and I decided that unless I know that the animal from whose bits and pieces have been humanely treated and butchered I am no longer eating them.  My exceptions to this are eggs, and I do know how horribly egg laying chickens are treated, and may well eliminate them too, in the future, oh, and I still eat fish.  That being said, all this is contingent upon my own health.  Being both lactose intolerant and hypo-glycemic poses a few problems, but nothing insurmountable.

I am into week 3 and so far so good!  Let's hope, for the sake of the animals, that I can stick to my resolve!

the post title was taken from this quote - Vegetarianism -- You are what you eat, and who wants to be a lettuce?

PETER BURNS, quoted in The Book of Poisonous Quotes